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MODULE 3

TOPIC 8

MAIN PROBLEMS OF THE MODERN

PHILOSOPHY

Lecture 14. Peculiarities of modern philosophic tendencies

1. Neo-positivism.
2. Existential philosophy.

International students should know, that this chapter is described in
the literature as the social philosophic and human study material.
Tendencies that were laid by the previous trends, schools and doctrines

resulted in the neo-Kantianism, neo-Thomism, neo-positivism and etc.
Accordingly, neo-positivism – is one of the main trends in the western
philosophy, that developed actively in 30-60th of the 20th century. Its

representatives made a certain contribution in solving the whole set of
difficult and urgent philosophic and methodological problems. They
include: sign-symbolic means in scientific cognition, possibility of

knowledge mathematization, correlation between theoretic and empiric
basis of the science. R. Karnap and L. Wittgenstein believe, that science
should be separated from philosophy and the only important knowledge
is special scientific knowledge, knowledge of philosophy is the analysis

of the language forms, first of all the languages of science. Students
should know, that the position of the neo-positivism, as the deviation
from the classic philosophic questions (“mega-physics”) bears the

content loss and the logic analysis of the science language, that is
making the formal logic absolute, leads to the restriction of the
philosophic idea.
The next influential and great trend, known as existentialism or

“the philosophy of existence”, is introduced by the names of Martin
Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre. This trend
contrasts scientific and technocratic society study to the problems of the

human being, as a special sphere of a unique being – existence.
Philosophers-existentialists consider the problems of human freedom
and responsibility, the context of life, the feeling of quilt and fear.
Respectively, they analyze the problems of death and love, alienation of

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